


With His Back Turned

by randi2204



Category: The Magnificent Seven (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/M, M/M, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-23
Updated: 2018-10-23
Packaged: 2019-08-06 06:57:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,293
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16383467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/randi2204/pseuds/randi2204
Summary: Chris hated that it was Ezra's name on his skin.





	With His Back Turned

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kayim](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kayim/gifts).



> **Disclaimer:** They belong to MGM, Mirisch,  & Trilogy, not to me.

Since the moment of his birth, Chris Larabee had borne two names on his skin.

One was small and neat and fit nicely into the small of his back.  The other was somewhat sprawling, as if the person who wrote them had learned their letters late, or had learned from someone who didn’t write well.  They scrawled across his chest just under his collarbone.

“Don’t let anyone see that name on your back, Chris,” his ma had warned him when he was old enough to understand.  “Most people only got but one name on themselves, and they don’t like it when other folk are… different.”

He’d nodded solemnly, promising to never let anyone see, because he could see how important it was to her.

It would be easier to hide that one, cover it up and never let it be seen, but… but he didn’t even know what that one said – no one had ever told him.  _If I’m supposed to decide,_ he thought, _how can I without knowin’ who she is?_   And what if that other person could be a friend, too, because wasn’t that what a soulmate was?  Chris had once heard his ma tell his pa that he understood her better than anyone she’d ever known.  So wouldn’t having two soulmates be like having two friends that understood you like that?  No one had ever said that it _couldn’t_ work that way.  So, young and impulsive and just wanting to _know_ , Chris snuck into his parents’ room and angled his ma’s mirror until he could make out the name on his back, trying to read it backwards.

 _Ezra Standish_ , it said.

 _But,_ he thought, surprised, _Ezra’s a_ boy’s _name…_ So maybe he really _was_ meant to be a friend.  He never knew of anyone that had a boy’s name on their skin if they were a boy their own self.

 _Unless_ , he thought suddenly, tearing his eyes away from that small, neat script, _unless their mas told ‘em not to show it like Ma did to me…_

He pulled his drawers and trousers back up and did his best to forget that he had more than one name on his body.

But it was more difficult to do than his ma had made it seem.  There was a boy at school named Richie Miller; he was older than Chris, and his eyes were bluer than the sky, clearer than the water in the creek that ran through the pasture.  And Chris couldn’t help but wonder sometimes, late at night when the crickets were chirping outside, what that Ezra Standish would be like, if he had blue eyes like Richie’s.  What would he be like to have as a friend? Would he like the same things Chris liked?

He wondered, too, about the Sarah Connolly whose letters slanted awkwardly beneath his collarbone.  There weren’t any Connollys around town; would he have to travel to find her?  Or would she find him?

He never _really_ forgot that he had another name on his skin, but as he grew up and learned more about what it meant to be soulmates, about how a man who… cared too deeply about other men was viewed by other people… the easier it was to pretend that Sarah Connolly was the only name he wore.  And he kind of hated that he had to, hated that he was _so different_ , hated that he had that boy’s name on his skin.  What you felt for your soulmate was meant to be… so what did that say about _him_?

As he was growing up, he listened carefully when his father discussed newcomers to the area.  But no Connollys moved to town, nor to any neighboring towns.  He wasn’t quite sixteen when he decided that he would have to go looking for her, and that thought didn’t sadden him quite as much as he’d thought it would.  The day he left his pa’s farm, he wasn’t thinking of anything but adventure and excitement and the things that might await him if he headed west.  Even finding Sarah Connolly seemed less important, somehow.  Chris wore her name; that was a promise that he’d find her eventually.

Ella wasn’t any too pleased to see Sarah’s name across his chest; she scored it with her nails, sank her teeth deep into his skin, as if she would rend the name from his flesh and leave her own mark.  She also raked her nails over Ezra’s mark whenever they had sex, clawing up his back until Chris felt about cut to ribbons, but he didn’t think she ever knew it was there.  Even on the day he left her, she screamed that she hoped he never found _that girl_ , but never said anything about the other name he wore.

Or maybe she was just in denial that he had two names and neither of them were _hers_.

He met Buck, and wondered for the first time in a long, long time about Ezra’s name on his back; if Ezra were a _friend_ rather than a _soulmate_ , why wasn’t he wearing Buck’s name, too?  Or the names of any of the friends he’d had back home?

He hated all over again that this Ezra Standish was his soulmate (or _one_ of them), that he had it in him to feel for a man _that way_.

Because Richie Miller hadn’t been the last boy he’d wondered about; he’d come across plenty of boys pretty enough to turn his head, but the ones that captured his attention and wouldn’t let go were the ones with gazes that were clear as crystal, like they had the sun behind their eyes.

Chris tried not to think about it (but deep down, he knew it was true).

There were times, he discovered, that you just _needed_ the touch of another person, that you needed to touch them in return.  Riding herd got lonely, and there were no women out on the trail; he gave in a time or two when that need got to be too much to bear, always imagining someone with crystal eyes.

In the end, when he found Sarah Connolly, it felt like he stumbled over her almost by accident, but that’s how Pa said he found Ma, so at least he had precedent on his side.  She had blue eyes that he couldn’t resist, clear and bright, and he thought he must have fallen for her for her eyes alone, before he even knew what her name was.

Sarah’s pa didn’t like him any, because, soulmate or not, no man was ever going to be good enough for his little girl.  But Chris figured that Hank might eventually come to accept him; when he caught Chris sneaking into his barn to meet with Sarah, at least his shotgun was loaded with rock salt instead of lead shot.

The first time Sarah traced her name where it scrawled across Chris’s chest, she flinched away, and Chris felt the skin where she’d touched him become warm.  “Well,” Sarah said, grinning impishly up at him, “no one ever said _that_ would happen.”

“Do it again,” he implored, taking hold of her hand to put it back on her name.  “It… it kind of tingles when you do it.”

“Really?” she asked, her eyes brightening.  He hadn’t seen where _his_ name was yet, but she took his hand and placed it under the curve of her breast.  Nothing happened, and she gave him an uncertain look.

“Maybe it has to be skin to skin,” he offered, staring at his hand, moving it just enough to cup her breast through her dress.

That made her grin and toss her hair.  “Chris Larabee, it’s incorrigible you are!”  But she shimmied out of her dress regardless, and they discovered that he was right.

She saw the name in the small of his back – of _course_ she did; they were married, and he’d been pretending it wasn’t there for so long that he’d almost forgotten that it _was_ – but she never asked him about it.  He knew she knew, though, because she never touched him there, a part of his body that was off-limits.

When Sarah died, he didn’t know until he smelled the smoke, until he saw the burnt frame of the house; her soulmark across his chest hadn’t warned him at all.  He wasn’t sure what he would have done if it had burned out like the house, telling him that something had happened when he was still a day’s ride from home.

The next couple of years were a blur of bar fights, cheap whiskey, and easy women.  They ignored the way Sarah’s name scrawled broad across his chest, and he moved their hands – sometimes with more force than necessary, depending how hard his memories were riding him – if they came too near it.  He hated that he would never feel that skin react to Sarah’s touch ever again, and couldn’t bear to have some other woman touch it.

After too long avoiding him, Chris felt able to meet up with Buck again, and made his way to the little town where Buck was making his way through all the bar girls.  He never expected to get caught up in stopping a lynching, or saving an Indian village… or meet his other soulmate.

The thing was… he didn’t know that the con man from the saloon was his soulmate; all Chris knew was that he was drawn to him, particularly those clear green eyes.  Then the gambler introduced himself, his gaze focused almost expectantly on Chris.

 _Ezra,_ Chris thought, trying to keep the shock from his face.  He had tried not to think about the name on his back since he’d married Sarah, and had mostly managed it, but now… Now he was faced with the reality of the soulmate he’d never been able to accept.

Because he only had to take one look at Ezra, to see how his eyes were clear and green, to feel the unexpected flutter in his gut, and _know_ that this Ezra was the Ezra Standish whose writing was small and neat across the small of his back.

The very next second, he was _angry_ , as angry as he’d ever been, even in the past few years after the fire that killed his family, and stormed away from their campfire, away from this _Ezra_ whose echo had followed him his whole life.

He didn’t want to be near him, wanted nothing to do with him, was glad when Ezra went out on patrol, when he deserted and left them and the village to the Ghosts.  Or so he told himself to push away the hurt that his soulmate would abandon him so.

He couldn’t stop the thrill that curled in his chest when Ezra returned, or keep himself from ordering – _ordering!_ – Ezra not to run out on him again.

Only in thinking about it later did Chris realize that he was giving Ezra the worst kind of mixed signals.  Ezra had to be wondering if he was actually wanted or not.  _He’ll get over it,_ he thought firmly, _he’ll realize we ain’t_ really _soulmates._   But even as he told himself that, Chris knew it wasn’t true; the uncertainty in those clear green eyes made it plain.  Worse, Chris knew _he_ had put that uncertainty there by reacting as he had to Ezra’s very name.

In all, he was relieved that they all made it back to town because it meant he could leave with no regrets or hard feelings.  He’d be free to go with Vin to Tascosa… free to leave Ezra behind and never think about him again.

But he couldn’t leave; the bluff old Judge had gotten shot and the man who had done it had run off.  Ezra was doing his damnedest to get himself out of his jail cell… and Chris just couldn’t seem to tell him no.

And Chris discovered that, despite Ezra’s abandonment of the village, they worked well together.  He was torn when the judge offered Ezra a pardon in return for staying in town to defend it, because… because it wasn’t what he expected, and it meant he couldn’t leave.

 _I don’t need an excuse,_ he told himself, because that’s what going to Tascosa with Vin really was, deep down at its root.  _I can leave if I want to._

But that was the rub, wasn’t it?

When the Judge asked him if he was staying, Chris replied, “I have a feeling I’m gonna regret this.”  From the corner of his eye, he saw Ezra flinch and turn away.  But he stayed.

They both did.

He and Ezra mostly got along all right when they were saving the town, but they were never _easy,_ not like him and Buck, or him and Vin.  A time or two, he asked himself why _Vin_ wasn’t his soulmate – just a platonic one, like he’d thought Ezra might be when he was still a foolish little boy.

But that wasn’t what was written on his skin.  _And that isn’t what a soulmate_ is, he thought, before pushing that thought away.

For the most part, though – except while they were defending the town for the Judge – he ignored Ezra.  And Ezra seemed to know better than to push the matter; he never tried to catch Chris while he was alone or drunk, never tried to bring up what they both knew.

And if there was a time or two that Chris thought he saw some kind of longing in Ezra’s crystal-bright eyes… well, he told himself to pay no attention to that, either.  He’d already had a soulmate; he didn’t want this second one.

No matter how beguiling his eyes were.

Sometimes he couldn’t stop staring at Sarah’s name written across his chest, and that made him think about Ezra’s neat script in the center of his back, and then…

He wasn’t going to let himself wonder, damn it; he wasn’t going to try to figure out just where his sharp scrawl of a signature resided on Ezra’s body.

Except he couldn’t _stop_ himself from wondering, and he hated that, too.

Was it along one of his forearms? Ezra never rolled up his sleeves… but no, it couldn’t be, because he had in Tastanagi’s village, hadn’t he, and there had been no dark name stark against his pale skin.  His chest, Chris decided, or his back, for he never was without a shirt – and vest and tailcoat – fully covered from throat to wrists.

 _But it doesn’t matter_ , he reminded himself, whenever those thoughts rose up, _because it’s not going to happen._

As the days and months slipped away, those thoughts rose up more and more often.  Sometimes Chris let them run their course.  Most of the time, though, he pushed them away as hard and far as he could.  _I_ had _a soulmate,_ he thought each time, and remembering Sarah and her crystalline eyes and soft curves and the buzz of her touch sent him to find a bottle that would chase that memory away.  He’d lost his soulmate; he didn’t want another one.

He could sense eyes on him sometimes while he was trying to drown those memories, and whenever he glanced around, his bleary eyes always caught Ezra in the act of turning away, looking down at his cards too quickly for it to be coincidence.

Then Lucius Stutz died in a hotel room in town, ten thousand dollars in his possession, and everything came crashing down.

Chris had been distracted about the threat to Mary’s life, but he hadn’t failed to notice how distracted Ezra was over the dead man’s money… and his own refusal to let Ezra watch over it was probably a big part of that distraction.  But this was really a case of _damned if you do, damned if you don’t_ , because how distracted would Ezra be by the money if it _was_ under his watch?  That much money had sent half the town off the rails; Ezra wouldn’t have fared any better.

Or so he kept telling himself, right up to the point where Stutz the younger shot Ezra right in front of him.

His throat hurt afterward, but he wasn’t sure if it was because he’d screamed or because he _hadn’t_ , if the force of holding it inside had shredded his innards somehow.

He managed to hold himself together long enough to get Buck’s newest gal away from Stutz, for Vin to use that beauty of a rifle… but as soon as Stutz was dead on the ground, Chris was running back over to where Ezra still lay in the street.

Nathan wasn’t working on him frantically, and Ezra himself was able to answer Mary when she spoke to him, even seemed pleased by what she said.  A great wave of relief swept over Chris.  Ezra was hurt, but not too badly… and he’d warned Chris, he’d stopped Stutz.  “You done good, Ezra.”

Then Nathan pulled a bundle of bloodstained cash from… somewhere, and glanced up at him, his face set in lines of dark disapproval.  “He’d be dead if it wasn’t for this.”

Slowly, Chris realized that Ezra had _hidden_ that cash inside his coat, that he’d been in the process of running out on them – on _him_ – just like he had in Tastanagi’s village.  The very thought left him cold inside.  _Why would he want to leave?_

“Mister Larabee,” Ezra said, and his words tore Chris’s gaze away from the money – _with Ezra’s blood on it_ – “in the future, I believe it would be best just not to… burden me with other people’s money.”

“Yeah,” Chris agreed, and even managed a wry little smile.

He tried not to think on it, pushed it away even as Ezra later asked what they were going to do with the money… but it wouldn’t leave him alone, kept dancing at the edges of his mind, until he was alone in his room at the boarding house.

 _He was really leaving._ Chris faced the truth at last, and sank down onto his bed when it left him weak.

This was it.  Ezra had really been ready to leave and quite likely never return, despite knowing that Chris was his soulmate.  _Well, you haven’t been exactly_ actin’ _like a soulmate, have you?_ Chris demanded of himself with an honesty that had become unfamiliar with disuse.

It made him pause, made him reconsider his actions over the past couple of years, particularly where it came to Ezra.  And he discovered that not only had he not been acting much like a soulmate, he hadn’t been acting much like a _friend_ , either.

Why _had_ he kept the money from Ezra? Because Ezra had asked for it, had asked for just a sliver of the trust he’d given so readily to the others?  Because he was afraid that Ezra would use that money to leave town – as he’d almost done, in fact?  Was it just another ploy to _keep_ Ezra close without _letting_ him close?

 _Fuck_ , he thought, and for a moment he wished that the floor would swallow him whole.

The question he’d asked himself in the street shouldn’t have been _why would Ezra want to leave_ , but _why would Ezra want to_ stay?

And the answer to that was, very plainly, _he wouldn’t._

Even though Chris dearly wanted him to.

He wasn’t sure _when_ things had changed, just that they had. He realized then that it didn’t matter that Ezra was a man, that _he_ could feel about a man the way he had felt about Sarah.  Ezra was his _soulmate_ , and that meant that what he felt for him was supposed to be.  No matter what you believed, the name on your skin didn’t lie, and he’d forgotten that – had made himself forget it.

All his effort to keep Ezra at arms’ length, to keep himself from caring too much… it hadn’t done a damned thing to help, and had, in fact, just made things worse.  Chris pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes until sparks flashed against his eyelids.  _There’s no denying you fucked this up,_ he told himself.

He let the shame course through him, let himself feel like the sorry son of a bitch he was for a few minutes, then shoved it away and stood up.

He’d spent a long time alternately ignoring and hating having Ezra’s name on his skin, but that was over.  What he hated now was how much time he’d wasted, and that his soulmate had decided it was better to leave than to continue to be let down by him.  The very thought made him squirm the exact same way he had as a boy when his Pa gave him that look that meant nothing less than _I’m so disappointed in you_.

 _Well,_ Chris thought, and took a deep breath.  _I reckon the first thing I ought to do is apologize, and admit what we both know is true… and see what happens from there._

He only noticed night had fallen when he got to the door of the boarding house.  It gave him pause, but he set out for the saloon anyway.  Ezra often didn’t go to bed until much later than this.

Most of the others were all gathered around what had become _their_ table, but Ezra wasn’t anywhere to be seen, nor was Buck.  _Buck’s probably seein’ to his girl,_ Chris thought as he slid into one of the empty chairs, then raised his eyebrows at Vin.  Vin flicked his gaze to Nathan.

“Ezra all right?” Chris asked.

Nathan nodded.  “Yeah, he’ll be fine.  In a little pain, but I gave him some laudanum and sent him off to bed.”

“A place we all should be seeking, this time of night,” Josiah added.  “Considering all the goings on today.” He tipped back his glass of whiskey.

Chris nodded slowly.  He was disappointed that Ezra wasn’t with them, but not terribly surprised.  Being shot, even just clipped as Ezra had been, was damned painful, and pain took a lot out of a body.  _It’s just as well,_ he thought.  _He needs to rest, and I should wait until he’s got a clear head before I talk to him._

He didn’t want to let it linger too long, however; this apology had already waited long enough.

Ezra did not appear in the saloon as expected the next day, however, and Chris decided he wasn’t going to wait any longer – if he did, what he needed to say might never get said. He climbed the stairs to Ezra’s room and rapped on the door twice before Ezra opened it.

“Need to talk to you, Ezra,” Chris said, and watched as Ezra’s face just seemed to freeze, turning to stone in an instant.

“I see,” Ezra said, stepping back to let him in and shutting the door behind him with exquisite care.  “So it’s your turn to have a go at me?”

“What?”  That didn’t sound good.

“I do believe I’ve already heard all there is to say about my… less-than-heroic actions the other day, but if you have something new, by all means…” Ezra waved a hand, inviting Chris to speak.

Just for a moment, Chris was torn – if he could get Ezra to tell him who said what, he could go give them a piece of his mind…

 _But that won’t do a lick of good,_ he thought with a silent sigh, _if I don’t apologize first.  Stop avoidin’ the issue, Larabee._   “I’m sorry, Ezra.”

Ezra went still in the very same way he’d seen hunted animals go still, trying to be less of a target. 

He waited for Ezra to say something, but when there was only silence, Chris let out a breath and continued.  “What I’ve been doing is wrong.  I shouldn’t have treated you the way I did.  And I’m fuckin’ sorry that it took you decidin’ to leave town before I realized what I was doing.”

Ezra’s throat bobbed as he swallowed hard, but he didn’t look away.

Chris stared right into those wide crystal green eyes, felt that so-familiar frisson run down his spine.  “It was no way for someone to treat their soulmate, and for that, I’m sorrier than I can say.  I know I ain’t a great catch,” he finished, voice quiet, willing Ezra to see he meant every word.  “But I reckon I got my head screwed on straight now, and if you’re willing…” He trailed off, because this time, he _needed_ Ezra to say something.  Anything.

“If—” Ezra’s voice cracked and he had to swallow again before he could speak.  “If I’m willing?”

He nodded.  “It’s up to you now, and I’ll abide by whatever it is you say.  You’re the one I wronged.”  There was more, but he bit down hard on the words.  It wouldn’t do to remind Ezra that he _could_ still leave, or, worse, to make Ezra think that was what _he_ really wanted.  It was a struggle to breathe evenly; he kept trying to hold his breath waiting on Ezra’s decision.

The silence between them seemed to last a hundred years, and Chris endured every second before Ezra spoke.  “Do you know,” Ezra said softly, “how it feels to be rejected by the one you know is your soulmate?”

Chris felt his heart clench.  Was that really Ezra’s response to his overture?  _Reckon it’d serve me right if it was,_ he thought, trying to stave off the sense of abandonment rising in his chest.  “No,” he replied, equally quietly, “but I know you do.”

Ezra turned away from him at that, bracing his hands on the dresser, head bowed so Chris couldn’t see his reflection in the mirror.  Instead, he watched Ezra’s back, saw his muscles tense under the thin material of his shirt, then relax again as he straightened.  “Perhaps you’re lucky, Mister Larabee,” he said without turning around, “that I am… too weak to repay you in kind.”

The words lanced through him.  He chanced reaching out, laid his hand on Ezra’s broad shoulder.  “No, you’re not weak,” he said, as solemn as a vow.  “It takes a strong man to take being treated the way I treated you and then forgive it… if,” and his voice caught roughly on the word, but he forced himself to go on, “if that’s what you mean to do.”

His sincerity was clear in his voice, but Ezra ducked his head again as if he didn’t – _or maybe_ couldn’t, Chris thought, chest aching – believe it.

“Please don’t trouble yourself over the matter any longer,” Ezra said, still not looking at Chris.  “It is forgiven and forgotten.”

 _Oh, like hell it’s forgotten,_ Chris thought wryly.  But at least he had _something_ now, something that might indicate Ezra wasn’t going to run off as soon as he was healed.  That knowledge – that he might have a chance to do right this time – made the words he wanted to say get caught in his throat, and all he could do was nod and squeeze Ezra’s shoulder.  It was startlingly tense under his hand.  Just as he took a step back, Ezra turned to face him once more, his face set.

“Very well then, Mister Larabee,” Ezra said, and Chris thought it looked like he was steeling himself, and had just enough time to wonder what it was before Ezra reached for his gun belt.

“Stop!” he ordered, shocked, but still able to capture Ezra’s hand before he could tug the tongue of his belt back through the buckle.  “What are you doin’?”

“I should think it obvious,” Ezra replied, eyebrows raised.  But there was an undercurrent of uncertainty to his words that belied his confident demeanor, and that was only reinforced by what he said next.  “It _is_ what you want, isn’t it?”

What he wanted?

 _Hell yes,_ he admitted silently, _I want that._   There was a part of him that purely _ached_ to know his soulmate’s touch, to feel again how his skin would grow warm and hum…  But at the same time, he knew _why_ Ezra was offering now, and while it would feel good for a while, it couldn’t possibly last.  Nothing built with distrust at the foundation could.  No matter how much he wanted that, this wasn’t the right time.  _Face it,_ he thought, gentling his grip on Ezra’s hand.  _The way you fucked up, it might never be the right time._

“I’m not asking you for that,” he said, his tone as soft as he could make it.  Ezra stiffened, every line of his body crying out as if Chris were rejecting him yet again, until Chris laid a hand lightly on his cheek.  “Just for now, Ezra, not forever.  You don’t trust me that way… and that’s fair,” he added when Ezra’s expression turned stricken, like he thought Chris was accusing him.  “I have to earn that trust, and we can go from there.”

Even so, Ezra turned away, and Chris saw his throat work.  “I am… perhaps… not the most trustworthy person myself,” he said, his accent thick.  “Given my recent actions…”

“Hey, stop that,” Chris interrupted quietly.  “Yeah, you were ready to leave, but you know what? You didn’t.  I reckon we both got some room for improvement here.”

“Perhaps so,” Ezra said.  “But I… I have not often trusted or been trusted in my life, and still I… don’t believe I’ve trusted anyone as I do you,” he finished, rushing the words out as if he feared they’d burn his tongue.

“I don’t think I’ve done much to earn that trust,” Chris said, his hand still cupping Ezra’s cheek.  _What that says about the rest of his life_ , he thought, sadness and anger filling his chest, _I’m not sure I want to know._   “But it’s a good place to start.  Thank you,” he added, “for giving me a second chance.” He let his hand fall away from Ezra’s face, released Ezra’s wrist where he’d grabbed it.

Ezra gave a jerky nod.  After a moment, with an uncertainty that told Chris just how much this meant to him, he asked, “So… what do we do now?”

Chris let his mouth lift in a grin.  “Why don’t we try bein’ friends?”

“That… sounds like an admirable plan, Mister Larabee.”

His grin widened.  “Friends do call each other by their first names.”

Ezra paused, studying Chris as if he were trying to discover if Chris was mocking him, and smiled hesitantly.  “… Chris.”

That shiver of heat sliding down his spine – the one he’d done his damnedest to ignore for more than two years – all of a sudden felt _right_.

It took some time before Ezra felt secure enough with him to tell him who had dressed him down for his decision to take the money and run off.  And it was, as Chris suspected, because of his own attitude toward Ezra.  A few quiet – or, as in one case, perhaps not so quiet – words with the parties involved lent itself to causing some self-reflection on all parts.  Chris only knew Ezra had received apologies because he seemed… lighter a few days afterward.

That was fair, too; he hadn’t talked to the others with the intent of making them apologize, just to think about _why_ they had done what they’d done.

Chris discovered being friends with Ezra wasn’t easy.  It was sparks and disagreements and shouting matches that sometimes had an unexpected (but not entirely unwelcome) effect, and he eventually discovered that kissing Ezra was a surefire way to get him to be quiet… or at least, make him quit arguing for a time.

He wondered sometimes if Ezra incited those arguments just to get him frustrated enough to kiss him… and sometimes he wondered if _he_ did the same.

Even in the heat of an argument, though, Chris did his best not to forget that Ezra had thought that he’d had to pay for Chris’s apology with sex, as if that was the only currency he could have with his soulmate.  It made him think unpleasant thoughts about Ezra’s upbringing – or what else might have happened to Ezra that would have led him to that conclusion first of all.  As much as he enjoyed them, those kisses were as far as he dared let things go.

It was difficult at times to keep his frustration in check, but he managed that, too.  He’d given Ezra enough mixed signals as it was.

As time marched on, Chris discovered that the burden of regret he sometimes felt for wasting so much time was lightening, gradually disappearing day by day.  Ezra’s guarded expression lightened, too, around the others and around Chris, and the shadows of that day didn’t seem quite so thick.

And the day that Ezra realized that Chris had taken his word without asking any of the others for corroboration, had _trusted_ him… it marked a turning point.  Being told you could trust a man and _knowing_ you could trust him were two very different things.  The way Ezra looked at him afterward, when he truly grasped that Chris had not hesitated even a single instant to believe what Ezra had told him … well, to say it was worth it would be an understatement.

Not that believing him had been difficult – not now that he’d really taken the chance to get to know Ezra rather than dismissing him out of hand as a cheater, someone undeserving of trust.   Trusting his soulmate and knowing that he was trusted in turn was so much better than keeping him at arms’ length the way he had been.  It made him feel whole in a way he hadn’t in far too long.

The next time Ezra invited him up to his room for a nightcap – as now happened quite regularly – he agreed eagerly.  It was, as always, nothing more than an excuse to be alone and indulge in kisses… except this time, as soon as Chris entered the room, Ezra locked the door behind him and pressed him against the dresser.

“Oh dear,” Ezra said softly, running his hands down Chris’s sides to come to rest on his hips, “it seems that we’re locked in.”

Chris grinned and tugged at the stick pin in Ezra’s cravat.  “Are we now?”

“We are.”  His long fingers smoothed over the leather and conchos of Chris’s gun belt.  “You may have to stay until morning.” He glanced up at Chris through his lashes, as if to take stock of his reaction.

In a whisper of silk, Chris untied the cravat and drew it from around Ezra’s neck.  “Good thing I’m not lookin’ to leave.”

Ezra licked his lips, and it was an invitation that Chris just couldn’t refuse.  He leaned in, needing to kiss that sinful mouth.  Ezra met him, lips parted just so, and his head spun from sensation.

He only pulled away because his lungs were desperate for air, and discovered that Ezra’s clever fingers had undone his shirt down to the waist of his pants, that his own hands had disordered Ezra’s hair.  Ezra shrugged out of his tailcoat and draped it carefully over the chair, before reaching for Chris’s gun belt, slowly pulling the end back through the buckle and giving it a tug for the prong to release the hole.  Another tug took care of the tie down around his thigh, and Ezra coiled it on the dresser.

The tooled leather of Ezra’s gun belt was smooth and warm under Chris’s fingers, and he unwound it from around Ezra, laying it beside his own on the dresser, before giving in once more to the temptation of Ezra’s mouth.  It was difficult to find the coordination necessary to unbutton Ezra’s vest as they kissed, but he managed.  Ezra yanked hard on the fabric of his shirt to free it from his trousers.

 _Oh._ Panting, he pulled away.  “Something to show you,” he said.  Ezra raised his eyebrows, but said nothing, just licked his lips again, now puffy from their kisses.

He groaned at the sight, but took Ezra’s hand and guided it under his shirt, ignoring his confused look as he drew it over his side to his back, then let go.  Ezra held still for a moment, then stroked up Chris’s spine.

“No,” Chris said softly, “other way.”

Ezra shot him a look equal parts puzzled and annoyed, then reversed course, let his fingers dip below the waist of Chris’s pants.  As soon as he did, he jumped, and Chris felt the skin where he bore Ezra’s name grow warm and start to tingle.

Ezra gave him a wide-eyed look.  “What… what…”

“That’s where I have your name,” he said, a tiny grin curling his lips.

Just for a second, Ezra blinked at him, then he smiled – not that self-deprecating half-smile he sometimes wore, but a real smile.  Then he wrapped his long fingers around Chris’s wrist and tugged gently, pressed Chris’s hand against his hip.  Chris didn’t feel the jolt, as Ezra was still wearing his trousers and drawers, but he still stroked his thumb over the hollow of Ezra’s hip, knowing that soon he would feel that little shock again, the one that reminded him every time that he’d found his soulmate.  It had been too long since he’d felt it, even if it was his own fault things had turned out that way.  _In the end,_ he thought, leaning in to kiss Ezra once more, _maybe… maybe this is how it had to happen._

The only thing hated now was time – every second between _now_ and the moment he got to see his name on Ezra’s skin.

***  
September 30, 2018

**Author's Note:**

> Written as a response to Kayim's [fic_promptly](https://fic-promptly.dreamwidth.org/) prompt, ["Magnificent Seven, Chris/Ezra, He hated that it was Ezra's name on his skin."](https://fic-promptly.dreamwidth.org/532461.html?thread=15720941#cmt15720941)
> 
> Just for the record, given Chris's state of mind, this takes place in a world where "Obsession" takes place considerably before "Serpents" (or, since I can wave my artistic license all I want, may not take place at all).


End file.
